Money: Students Present Sports Analytics Research

by Roland Minton on April 18, 2016

Taylor Ferebee and David Moreau presented research posters at the Carolina Sports Analytics Meeting, which included representatives from the Charlotte Bobcats and ESPN: The Magazine. Taylor’s work on graphical representations and metrics of soccer effectiveness focused on passing statistics. David’s work on the relationship between golf consistency and effectiveness in different aspects of the game used statistics derived from the PGA Tour’s Shotlink system.

The Roanoke College team at the meeting included Joey Miller and Roland Minton, who gave a talk on “Stat Crew at Roanoke College.” Taylor, David, and Joey are all members of the Stat Crew, a group of students who collect and analyze game data at Roanoke soccer, basketball, and lacrosse games. One of the talks at the meeting was by the head of analytics for the Atlanta Blaze, a professional lacrosse team. Contacts such as this will help improve the analytics the Crew provides Roanoke lacrosse teams, as well as providing a foot in the door for sports analytics internships and jobs.

The movie Moneyball highlighted the revolutionary use of analytics in sports such as baseball. Conferences such as CSAM underline the growth of the analytics field and the potential for this statistics-related industry.